RDA told us during one of his Q&As that he had felt something funny in his chest when he was diving in a swimming pool with his daughter. He was planning a scuba dive soon, so he went in for a check up and the doctor said that a dive over 20 feet would probably have killed him.

I believe it even only were ten feet. He dived six feet in the pool with Wylie and the doctor said if he had gone at this dive trip at ten feet he already might have died. I'm so glad he listened to his body!

You're very likely correct, Astra! Specific details are still a little fuzzy...

I'm just really glad I managed not to make a *blinking* fool of myself in front of RDA Behind closed doors, however... there was much squeeing to be heard!

Paya's pics are AMAZING!!!! Makes mine look downright paltry, but I will post them anyway once they are downloaded and sorted.

GateCon, hmmm, where do I begin.

Well, I guess I could start with my own RDA encounter of the close kind...Legends Memoribilia and Sea Shepard Conservancy were sharing space in a dealer's room and RDA walked in the back area from the room where he was doing his first photo session to check things out. I was looking at some photos and artwork for sale and looked up as he was walking in and he was RIGHT THERE!!!!! Right in front of me. HOLY CRAP!!!!! I mean right there as in close enough to touch. When I regained the power of speech, I managed to actually say something that resembled 'hi'. Usually I am not at a loss for words, but something about gorgeous brown eyes and a kind smile...and yes I did have enough presence of mind to snag a photo. Which I will post later.

Fast forward to the Sea Shepard fund raising auction Saturday night: Rick was in a bidding war with someone else for a Sea Shepard pirate flag and he was walking around the rows of chairs where we were all seated. He had his back to us and kept taking steps back until he ended up right in front of my row. My seat was three from the end so of course, out comes the camera and I click off a couple of pics. He then steps back again so he is behind my row a little. I turned and snapped another shot and he was looking at me and made the funniest face at me at the same time I snapped the picture. OMG!!!! I love it. I will definitely post it and I think it is one of the best pics I have.

The whole thing was a blast. I am still trying to process everything and that's not easy considering I'm still trying to recover from too much excitement, too much caffeiene (well maybe not), too much carousing (use your imagination) and an utter and absolute lack of restful sleep. I need to eat and unpack and get some rest so I can start making sense.

I had a wonderful time and Beth, Lothi, Astra, Banlu, and everyone else I met are just as awesome, actually more so, in person than they are here on the forum. If GateCon returns to Vancouver next year, I am totally planning on going. Almost everyone I met was totally cool. There were some behind the scenes issues that should hopefully be resolved, but I have no intention of letting them taint an otherwise wonderful experience.

Anyway, that's all I have for now. I will report more, complete with photos when I can string two or more thoughts together logically.

I remember that there was one... I know I was there... but I don't remember much yet.

I'm still dizzy!

I'm working on a con diary, which I didn't have the wherewithall to keep during the con... but now that I've retold the experience a couple of times, I think it's starting to come back to me.

I know it is annoying when you have to wait for a Con report, but I understand better now the breathless excitement of attending such an event, and the way the experience can overwhelm you... bear with us until we can find our brains and dust them off and get the story together.

I can say that Rick looked fantastic. He complained that he was still about thirty-five pounds heavy, due to the surgery he had on his foot, and that he would soon have to have the other foot done, too... he did not sound enthusiastic about it. Apparently, it is a tremendously painful surgery, and he doesn't like to have his mobility reduced.

If he was thirty-five pounds heavy, it must have all been in his pockets, because he looked pretty trim when he came out for the Stargate panel with shirt tucked and BDUs.

All through the panels, Rick smiled easily, talked easily, and eagerly invited questions from the audience. All I could do was watch and try to remember to use the camera, even though my hands were shaking so much that most of my pictures are unusable. Luckily, Paya was there... she had a better seat and a WAY better camera.

I want to go again. Gatecon 2009, anyone? If Rick does sign on for another 'con, I am going to be sorely tempted to repeat this experience!

shots from our performance of 'Dancing Queen' will soon be available...

Jolene even took a video of this... If you all are strong enough to watch it.

Oh, man . . .

QUOTE (Astra)

QUOTE (Beth)

RDA’s answer to them: he didn’t have his writers with him.

You forgot how he spilled his coffee when Paul said that...

Yes indeed -- RDA did a full-blown spit-take at that.

QUOTE (Astra)

naked skin on the belly!

Possibly a posthumous practical joke from Don Davis? Everyone was given a special badge to wear in his memory; that's what RDA is wearing clipped to the front of his shirt. It had a photo of General Hammond on one side and a short memorial piece on the back. Partway through the panel, the weight of it apparently pulled one of the buttons open. After a while, RDA noticed it and buttoned it back up again: and the crowd let out a moan of objection. Rick shook his head at us and said, "Oh, STOP!"

Admittedly, at the beginning of the panel the previous day, he happened to ask "Any questions?" just as he was fussing with his shirt. So someone in the audience called out "Will you take it off?"

Unfortunately, he didn't. Oh, well.

On the other hand, if you look at the pictures from the Sunday panel -- the ones with the light-coloured shirt -- you may notice the top button is unbuttoned in most of them. Well, I sure noticed. At the end of the panel, RDA called Wylie up onto the stage, and she remained with him through the Don Davis memorial, which followed directly after, and the closing ceremonies after that. He interacted with her a lot during this time, leaning down to listen and then talking to her. At one point, she said something to him; he looked at her, buttoned the top button of his shirt, looked at her again, and she nodded.

Dang.

QUOTE (Liz)

how much does a Gatecon experience cost?

Not sure why you specifically asked this of me -- but to quote Asimov, "Insufficient data for meaningful response." There were three different levels of membership, differently priced; numerous add-ons; and the biggest costs are travel, hotels, and meals, not to mention memorabilia and souvenirs. The biggest spenders dropped thousands of dollars at the charity auction. Try looking over the Gatecon website to get an idea.

QUOTE (wabbit)

about that next year thing...yeah...

Yes! We must have wabbit next year!!

I will now try to get my thoughts collected enough to attempt a post about the panel itself!

So. The Sunday panel . . . was supposed to be focussed on MacGyver, but it wasn’t; as I said, it turned into a general Q&A, and only a few of the questions were about MacGyver.

One young boy, who had a very strong Scottish accent, asked how many ‘pen-knives’ they had used in the show. It took Rick some effort to grasp the question, between the accent and the unfamiliar term, but he finally got it. He said they ordered them by the gross, then interjected, “How much is a gross? 144, right?” Audience agreed. Rick beamed and said, “Really? I got it right?” and turned towards the side of the room where Wylie was sitting and made a joke about how her father actually does know a few things.

This was how many of Rick’s answers went – he had commented the day before that his answers were often ‘tangential’, and sooner or later he would often ask, “What was the question again?” This was very entertaining and made for unexpected answers. In this case, he got back to the question about the knives, and guessed that they probably went through a gross of them every season, ending up by guessing a thousand knives – “all different sizes, with different blades.”

Then he admitted that during the series, he cut himself repeatedly, and told one particular story: he had been playing around with one of the knives between takes, stabbing with it; he remarked that they don’t have a lock on the blade to keep it open. The blade folded itself closed right over his hand and gashed his finger. He looked at it and thought, “Well, that’s not going to match!” – that is, they were going to have a continuity problem with a bandage suddenly appearing on his hand.

(We can now start speculating which episode it was! He mentioned that they were shooting scenes in a car.)

Posted below is a picture Lothi took of Rick pantomiming messing around with the knife.

Other questions asked during the panel included whether Legend would ever be released on DVD – no, Lothi did not ask that, someone else did. And it gave us a great opportunity to cheer and make it plain that there was a market ready to buy it.

Amanda’s appearance was as an unannounced ‘surprise guest’, although it was nicely set up. Someone asked Rick which, of the times he’d kissed Amanda, was the best! He hemmed and hawed and said he didn’t remember, and she appeared through the Stargate behind him and said, “Maybe I can refresh your memory.” As the room exploded with cheers, they hugged (for a very long time) and kissed (platonically). They still had their mikes in hand as they did so; eventually, Rick asked Amanda (into his mike, quite audibly, still hugging her) “So, how’s the husband?” She asked after Wylie; that’s when we learned that Wylie was not only at Gatecon, but was there at the panel, watching from the sidelines by the sound booth! Rick invited Amanda to visit him at their new house as long as Wylie didn’t object, and mentioned that Wylie was a little jealous of other women.

And he did eventually answer the question about kissing Amanda – he said that just as the best Stargate episode was always “the next one”, the best kiss was always “the last one”.

This post is getting horrendously long; I’m going to break now and start a new one!

After Amanda had made her entrance and taken her seat, she asked Rick, “So, can you build a nuclear reactor from a stick of gum and a shoelace?” General laughter, and Rick answered, quite loudly, “No! Nobody can!”

One of the odder questions asked was what they liked as snack foods. Amanda favours apples with almond butter. Rick hemmed and hawed a bit, and Wylie announced from the sidelines that her dad really likes blueberries. This was the start of a long and silly story about Rick’s addiction to blueberries.

At the end of the panel, Rick and Amanda were asked to share favourite memories of Don Davis. Rick talked about how he had met Don during MacGyver, when Don had been Dana Elcar’s double. They had first met during the filming of what must have been “The Survivors” (RDA does not remember episode titles). They were shooting the scene where Pete Thornton falls into the lake – which was apparently filmed out in Stanley Park, so the fall was actually done into the harbour. It’s a very cold harbour. Don Davis did the fall, and Rick admired how matter-of-fact and professional he was about it.

Amanda went on to tell a story of her own, but I kept watching Rick. He had removed his Don Davis badge when he’d fixed the button on his shirt, and set it on the table beside him; now he picked it up and studied it again, his face growing very serious.

He put the badge back on and stared out into the distance, and wrapped both hands around his microphone and gripped it harder and harder.

Amanda’s story hit a silly line, and he didn’t so much as glance towards her or crack a smile – pretty much the only time all weekend that the light went out of his eyes, and he wasn’t smiling or laughing.

It was a very poignant moment.

I just wish someone had asked Rick about memories of Dana Elcar! Maybe next year . . .

And yes, I know that I haven't yet posted about the question I asked. It's taking me a while to pull my memories together and actually write it down! Asking that question was the most direct interaction I myself had with RDA; I didn't have an autograph or photo session, and I didn't run into him in the dealer's room or the halls or anything like that.

More later.

PS: Nearly forgot to credit Lothi -- she took the photos! I was too absorbed in staring at him.

I wonder where RDA's mind was during those few minutes? very interesting.

Something else which is interesting is his recollections of when he first met Don S Davis. I'm almost certain RDA was on-stage with Don in 1985 to accept an award at the Stuntman Awards Show for the parachute jump in the gambit of the opening episode.

I recall that someone asked RDA during the panels if he had performed that particular stunt.

He said that he had done everything up to that point... including catching the hook and setting it in the saddle, but he wasn't allowed to do the actual lifting-the-horse-off-of-the-ground shot. He mentioned that the stunt had won an award, but he didn't elaborate further; he was commiserating the fact that the directors hadn't alowed him to do the 'fun part'...

His answers were often quite 'tangenial' as he defined it. I would have been perfectly happy to listen to him rambling about anything he cared to talk about

Just an update, people: I just read in the RDAnderson forum that Kate will do a full transcript of all the panels, so we can read all of his ramblings again and again and again... Can't wait!

And thanks, Beth, now I know Paya was right and I was wrong, I understood Wylie said "You should add frozen blueberries" (to the apple) which is quite different than "my dad likes frozen blueberries".

And I also watched him during when he was just staring into space for quite a while. You really could see how he came out of it after quite some time, squinted around and remembered where he was again.

I wonder where RDA's mind was during those few minutes? very interesting.

My interpretation was that he was very deeply moved and trying to keep a grip on himself; he doesn't strike me as someone who would be comfortable getting teary-eyed in that particular public forum.

All the rest of the time that he was on stage, throughout the weekend, he was either attentive to the audience or to whoever else was on stage with him. This was the only time that he turned inwards, as it were.

QUOTE (Astra)

I just read in the RDAnderson forum that Kate will do a full transcript of all the panels, so we can read all of his ramblings again and again and again...

That's fabulous news! I've been very annoyed with myself -- I used to have a much better memory when it came to recalling the details of conversations, and now I can't do better than recall highlights and approximate phrasings.

Rick strikes me as someone who is very passionate and cares deeply about others--that could explain why he looked so serious and moved during the discussion about the late Don Davis. They were probably very close and he was most likely reflecting on that relationship, mortality, etc. He also said once in an interview that he is a "moody" and "emotional" person who chooses to go with those moods when they arise rather than attempt to suppress them. Perhaps he would control himself enough to not shed too many tears in public, but to show his sadness openly in other ways is the most likely explanation.

During the Saturday panel (I think), Rick was asked if he had seen the Mythbusters special on MacGyver, and what he thought of it.

He said that the Mythbusters people had contacted him before the show was made. They had contacted Paramount first, to obtain permission to use clips from the show; then they contacted him to ask if he minded their doing the special. Rick was very touched by this – he pointed out that he has no ownership of MacGyver, and that it was a true courtesy on the part of the Mythbusters to go to the added effort of asking him. His answer to them was that he didn’t mind at all, as long as they didn’t make MacGyver ‘look stupid’.

On Sunday, after Amanda had joined him on stage, they ribbed each other a good deal. At one point, she told him, “You’re so pretty.” He thanked her and said, “You used to be blonde.” After a moment, he added, “So did I.” I laughed so hard I just about coughed up a lung.

At the end of the Sunday panel, after Wylie had come up onto the stage, Rick spoke about how all the work he does on environmental causes is for her – and for all the other children, of course; that it was for them that the planet needed to be saved. I got very teary-eyed myself at that point . . .

That was on Sunday, in the MacGyver panel -- part of his answer to my own question! I’ve been trying to see if I could actually recall it verbatim, but I can’t, and I’m going to have to settle for paraphrasing again.

A note on the Q&A sessions: during Rick’s panels, there were usually seven hundred or more people in the room, and the mike runners had a real challenge sorting out who would ask a question and in what order. Given the size of the room, questions had to be asked into the mikes; that meant you raised your hand, not to be called on by the guest on stage, but to signal the mike runners. There were three of them, each in a different section of the auditorium, on headsets, tracking the order of questions. When it came to be someone’s turn, they were handed the mike, and the mike runner raised a badminton racquet with a bright coloured number on it, and Rick (or whichever guest was on stage) would point towards the person and call out for the question. Questions weren’t submitted or vetted in advance; it was a case of catching the eye of the mike runner, and hoping you got into the queue early enough that the sequence reached you before time ran out. With that many people, the odds weren’t great.

Before the MacGyver panel, I had spent a lot of time thinking about what question I myself would ask, if I could. There were so many! Rick’s penchant for ‘tangential’ answers actually gave me the idea of rolling two questions into one, in the hopes that he’d wander through answers to both. So, as soon as I could after the panel started, I raised my hand at a moment when the runner was looking in my direction, and got a nod. As the questions continued, I kept on catching her eye to be sure I wouldn’t miss a signal for my hoped-for turn; after a bit, she came to the end of our row and beckoned to me. She asked me, “Is it a MacGyver question?’ and I said yes; she replied, “Okay, you’re the next-next.” The sequence went around twice more, and then it was my turn, and I stood up praying I wouldn’t suddenly go totally blank. I had rehearsed my question mentally what seemed like dozens of times.

“This is a MacGyver question. The character you created has become a cultural icon. Do you ever get fed up with people expecting you to be MacGyver, or asking you to MacGyver things? Or do you find it funny? Would it get in the way of you possibly reprising the role if they go ahead with the movie?”

Clever, huh? I wanted to ask how he felt about the role, and I also wanted to hear him talk about the movie.

Well, it worked.

As Grrl, said, Rick’s reply was that no, it didn’t bother him – he was proud of the work he’d done. (big bright light explosions inside!) He went on to express reservations about the movie, however. He said that, given the amount of technology present today, and how common it is, he thought it was ‘ludicrous’ to resurrect the character at this time. He didn’t see how the premise of the character would work today, and said that MacGyver had happened ‘at exactly the right time’ – the mid-eighties to the early nineties. He mentioned the Mad Magazine parody, and a scene in which Mac uses a real key as a model to carve a copy, and then tries to use the copy to unlock the door when he also has the key itself – this was his example of how he thought the MacGyver approach would be likely to play out in a contemporary setting.

Then he added, “And besides, I’m too old.” There was a chorus of disagreement from the audience, and he began to insist, “I wasn’t fishing!” Amanda laughed and started to pantomime casting a fly with a fishing rod and reeling it in.

So that was my one moment in the panel – after that came the Don Davis memorial and the closing ceremonies, and then Lothi and I were swept off into our interview, and much later we made our way back to our room for a little quiet time, the first chance we’d had to think about the experience. I plopped down on a chair, and Lothi took out her camera and started flipping through the pictures on it. After a moment, she handed me the camera.

The little screen showed Rick looking directly at me.

I made some burbly noises as Lothi proceeded to rub it in – I had asked him a question! He’d looked me right in the eye (and since Lothi was sitting right next to me with her camera, that was close enough for the photographer!) He’d paid close attention as I spoke, and then answered me directly. And I had been so focused on the question and the answer that I had not, at the time, really registered that Richard Dean Anderson was looking right at me and speaking directly to me. It came back with a thunk as I sat there looking at that picture, and the next several. All. Looking. At. Me.

A moment later, Lothi looked over at me and saw that I had slid off my chair onto the floor.

Not that I actually hit the floor. I was floating . . . I didn’t come down to earth for hours!

As Grrl, said, Rick’s reply was that no, it didn’t bother him – he was proud of the work he’d done. (big bright light explosions inside!) He went on to express reservations about the movie, however. He said that, given the amount of technology present today, and how common it is, he thought it was ‘ludicrous’ to resurrect the character at this time. He didn’t see how the premise of the character would work today, and said that MacGyver had happened ‘at exactly the right time’ – the mid-eighties to the early nineties. He mentioned the Mad Magazine parody, and a scene in which Mac uses a real key as a model to carve a copy, and then tries to use the copy to unlock the door when he also has the key itself – this was his example of how he thought the MacGyver approach would be likely to play out in a contemporary setting.

Well it's certainly good to know what he really thinks about MacGyver. His answer also confirms pretty much that he wouldn't be part of any movie, and by the sounds of it, wouldn't be too supportive of any ideas to make one either. Although I'm not sure how he connects technology to MacGyver not working.

Jade and I had a quite intersting discussion about this yesterday. Rick said that with the prevalence and access to modern technology, and people using it for everything, that there really isn't a place for a MacGyver--a guy who makes stuff from ordinary objects lying around.

Beth, Loth and I talked about this at the con, and Jade and I talked about it later. We've decided that MacGyver would probably have a greater impact now because of our dependance on modern technology. The general consensus is that even though tech is present in such a large degree in our lives, very few people actually understand how their gadgets work. I also pointed out that there are places where things like cell phones and GPS don't work at all, and then threw out the what if the battery dies argument.

Living and playing in the southwest desert has given me a different appreciation for the uses and limitations of modern tech like cell phones. Some of the places we've gone in the past 5 years have no cell coverage at all. Others, we can only get a signal if we are at the top of a mountain and in line of sight of a cell tower. People who are used to having cell coverage find themselves at a loss when their phones don't work.

About 3 weeks ago, there wasa atory on the local news about some people who got themselves in trouble with a rental vehicle and a GPS in southern Utah. They decided to do a little sight seeing and relied on a GPS in the vehicle to guide them on their tour. The GPS showed them a road; what it didn't show was the road is a Jeep trail, requiring high clearance 4 wheel drive to make the trip. No theirs wasn't. By the time they realized their mistake it was too late. They were stuck and required Search and Rescue to find them and get them out. They had the technology, but in this environment, it was pretty useless.

Put MacGyver in the same situation, and he would have talked to the locals, found out the road conditions and then decided what to do.

Same thing if we have a major natural disaster. Anybody remember HUrricane Katrina? Knocked out communications, transport and a whole lot of other vital services. A very large part of the rescue efforts was achieved by ordinary people using low to no tech methods to save themselves and their neighbors.

I think, given the right conditions, a MacGyver movie does have a place in the modern world. And yes, Rick is older, hey who isn't. But that could be built into the story line as well. In fact, it could be a very essential plot element if handled properly by the writer.

Overall, I think Rick has a great deal of respect for the work he did as MacGyver and that the years have mellowed his sometimes harsh view of the character. He appreciated the MythBusters guys not making him look stupid, and he has a pride for his work in the creation of the character.

On the good news front though, he did tell the producers of Stargate that he was prepared to lose the 35 lbs he gained, if they were inclined to make a third SG1 movie. According to Rick, they said "deal". I don't know for sure if that is an endorsement that a third SG1 movie is in the works, but it certainly opens the door for one. Who knows, he may even consider a Mac movie if the story and the writing is right.

Beth and I were interviewed by a journalist from Holland about Fandom and Fanfiction writing.

I can tell you... it is quite overwhelming when an international journalist recognizes your pen name and knows your writing enough to mention titles and content For a moment or two, modesty fled and I almost felt like a celebrity myself. *blush*

One of the questions she asked us, when we were discussing fandom, which were the websites where we liked to spend our time. (paraphrased, of course... I don't remember verbatim what she asked)

My answer was that I liked MOL because of the atmosphere of friendliness and of intellectual discussion about all aspects of the show, as well as the passionate interest that is still present, despite the fact that it has been decades since the show aired. I find that very impressive, and I think that Trix did too. I told her that, while I check daily at RDAnserson.com for Notes From Rick, I don't spend time at the forum, because of the degree of cliquishness that I have found there. Also, they don't have a fanfiction forum, which is of course essential to my mental well-being

She told me that she was going to mention MacGyverOnline to RDA, when she interviewed him later. I hope that she did... following my own mention of MOL during my brief encounter with him, hopefully it will intrigue him enough to check us out!EDIT: A misunderstanding here... Trix did not have an interview scheduled with RDA at this point, but rather intended to create the opportunity at a later time. Sorry about that...

I wish I'd had the wherewithall to mention to Trix the book 'What Would MacGyver Do' and the fact that MOL and Rockatteer are mentioned within.

Andy Warhol said everyone gets 15 minutes of fame... I am thinking that this interview (and the article(s), when it is written) will probably be my 15 minutes, with change... and that I really don't want any more!

Grrl-I completely agree on the tech thing. Spend five days in and around Fort Kent, Maine in the dead of winter and you'll agree, too. No cell, no internet, often no actual phones. Just hamradio and brains and most importantly never, ever doing anything alone. Ever. Myself and a vet student joked that we should make a book called 'The MacGyver Guide to Veterinary Medicine' for the dog sled race we were vetting. Yeah, you get a bit creative when you got what you got and that's it. Wouldn't trade it, though. Lovely experience.

Loth-I haven't been interviewed yet, but I have been recognized for my writing at a con, and I nearly died, too. I felt like a celebrity, too. Very, very, very cool.

On the movie question: one of the things I came away with was a very strong feeling that Rick cares about the character and image of MacGyver, and does not want him to be made to look ridiculous. Funny is okay – Rick is such a richly humourous man that it's amazing he's never played a completely comic role – but stupid would be wrong.

During our discussions (as Grrl mentioned), I was holding out from the start that if anything, the premise of MacGyver is even more valid and relevant today. Much of Mac’s genius involved understanding technology and how it truly works at the most basic level, allowing him to apply that knowledge in unconventional and improvisational ways. At the time, most people did not have much of a grasp of how things worked around them, whether it was a car or a computer.

We are inundated with technology now, and we have even less of a grasp of how it works and how it fails. I have no problem with MacGyver getting older, and I can easily see him keeping up with technology, and continuing not to be a slave to it.

Grrl hit the bull’s-eye with her examples of When Tech Fails; here in the NW, we get a constant run of news articles about hikers and climbers who come to grief when they assume technology will save them in out in the wilds. One of my responsibilities at work is disaster contingency, and I have to plan for how we will cope when (not if) our technology is knocked out even for a day. I’m supposed to plan for terrorist attacks, but I spend a lot more time thinking about crippling snowstorms (it only takes 2” of snow to shut down Seattle completely) and power outages.

Back to the movie: an older MacGyver might be less able to leap tall buildings with a single bound – but that would just mean he’d be all the more obliged to resolve problems with his brains instead. Again, the premise holds.

On the interview: I had mentioned this in my Quick Highlights post a while back, but it’s been one of the things that’s kept me feeling giddy for days now.

I entered the costume parade on a lark, mostly because the organiser had made it plain on the Gategoers list that she really, really wanted people to participate. (I officially retired from costume competitions years ago.) I put both my real name and “MacBeth” on the form, since more people at the con knew me by the latter, and both were announced when we did our stuff on the stage. In addition, Lothi and I had written our usernames on the backs of our Gatepass badges.

Afterwards, a woman I’d never seen before approached me and asked in a Dutch accent, “Are you the MacBeth who does the stories?”

Uh, yeah, I stammered, I’d written two MacGyver stories.

She said she was a journalist – her name was Trix, a columnist from the Netherlands – and she’d like to talk to me about writing – could we find time during the weekend?

“Are you sure I’m the MacBeth you’re looking for?”

“You wrote ‘Up a Long Ladder’, didn’t you?”

Brain short-circuits. “Um, yeah, that’s me.”

It took us till Sunday to set it up; in the interim, I introduced Trix to Lothi, confirmed that she knew Lothi’s work as well (and a good thing, since Lothi’s far better established than I am as a writer, and deserved the recognition!) So I gleefully dragged her (Lothi) into the interview. Trix was covering the convention and had visited MOL as well as various other sites beforehand; heck, she’s probably going to end up reading this thread!

(If you do, Trix, it was a delight and an honour to meet you and I really want to read your articles.)

Rick seems to be very cryptic about this whole MacGyver movie business. In one interview during the Comic Con, he said he would consider reprising the role, and now he says he doesn't want to do it. I'm hoping he will change his mind, because a scenario could be in the movie that there is some spectacular technological failure of some kind (perhaps terrorist-related), and MacGyver is called in as a consultant to solve the problem. I don't know-something like that could work. And he is NOT too old! I don't want to hear that from him! Keep the recent Indiana Jones movie in mind, Rick!

I hope he takes a break between foot surgeries to lose some weight, act in the third Stargate movie (and possibly a MacGyver movie), and does some of the active things he loves, like skiing. He deserves a break from the pain so he can be healthy and enjoy his life for awhile.

I hope I'm doing this correctly (I'm new here), but I just wanted to thank all of you who took the time to post your memories and photos for the rest of us to enjoy. It's wonderful to read all about the con and the obviously good time that RDA was having there.

Grrl hit the bull’s-eye with her examples of When Tech Fails; here in the NW, we get a constant run of news articles about hikers and climbers who come to grief when they assume technology will save them in out in the wilds. One of my responsibilities at work is disaster contingency, and I have to plan for how we will cope when (not if) our technology is knocked out even for a day. I’m supposed to plan for terrorist attacks, but I spend a lot more time thinking about crippling snowstorms (it only takes 2” of snow to shut down Seattle completely) and power outages.

The first question we were asked in our prep meeting for the dog sled race, which runs 250 miles through terrain that changes yearly based on weather and logging road conditions was this: